Lifestyle tips

Finding the Balance

Posted in 'Tips' on September 10, 2014

Between homework with the kids, client appointments, meetings, managing your business/work schedule, keeping your house clean and your fridge stocked, it's easy to get to the point of burnout before even realising. Busy women tend to put themselves at the bottom of the list when it comes to self-care but at the end of the day, if you crash and burn there's a lot of people relying on you to get things done.

It's important to put preventative strategies in place to manage your work/life-load before you hit the point of 'crash and burn'. Here's a couple of tips to help you maintain some semblance of balance between work (or business) and life. It's all things you know, but every now and then it's nice to get a little reminder.

Schedule some downtime

Having a bit of 'down-time' is a bit of a no-brainer but sometimes we just don't make the time for it. Plan for it. Schedule it. And made sure you do it. Down time might be a date-night with your partner in front of the TV, coffee with friends, a pampering session, heading to a sporting event or a picnic with the kids. Anything that drags you from 'work mode' gives you the opportunity to recharge the batteries. Know what is a guaranteed destresser for you and schedule it in at least once a week.

Get moving

Exercise is one of those things we know we need to do but is always put on the backburner when other things come up. Funny thing is, we know how good we feel after we do some exercise. When it comes to finding the time to get your heart-rate up, think outside the square a little. You don't need to be spending hours at the gym or going for 10km jogs every day but certainly walking the long way home from the bus stop to get an extra 10 minutes fast walking in here and there all contributes.

Learn to say no

As busy women we try to do everything for everyone but the reality is, sometimes we just can't. Over-committing to committees, community groups, P&Cs, charities, work events, functions, parties.....oh it's exhausting just thinking about trying to fit it all in. Learning to say 'no' to things that you realistically just can't do is both empowering and a great way of gaining back some valuable time. You can't be everything to everyone. Full stop.

Outsource

Some of those tasks within your life and business or work are tedious and time-consuming but are have-to-be-done kind of jobs. However ask yourself, do you personally have to do them? Do you have to do the mail run, the book-keeping, the ordering, shopping, the ironing/cleaning/mowing?? Consider any of the jobs that can be outsourced and buy yourself back some time to do other things.

We all try (often in earnest) to maintain some semblance of work-life balance and the reality is, that life is constantly changing and it's a real juggling act. However sometimes it's the small things that make all the difference. Schedule a little time out, keep active, say no when you can and outsource anything that you don't personally need to be doing. Every little bit helps.